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Monthly Archives: April 2011

I’ve been watching the Champions League games for ten years or more, and I’ve been waiting for El ClÃ¡sico games which oppose Real Madrid to Barcelona every year, however I’ve noticed this year that most restaurants (Roadster & Crepaway for example) and some pubs are covering the game and there’s a lot of talk about it almost anywhere I go.

I don’t know where all this love for Spanish clubs came from, maybe it’s the Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi phenomena spreading to Lebanon but I would not be surprised if you see car convoys cheering for the winning team tonight like what happens during the World Cup.

I’ve been going to Restaurant Leila at ABC Dbayye and Achrafieh for few years now and the service has been very good, yet I’ve heard some complaints from friends of mine since it relocated inside ABC Dbayyeh and I unfortunately had a bad experience myself the other day while having lunch there.

The place was not packed but the waiter just got everything wrong. Two dishes were ordered without onions came with onions all over them. The supposedly “hot bread” came cold, the olive bread they serve right at the start tasted like they were two days old. A hot dish we ordered never showed up for some reason as well. Putting those mistakes aside, the remaining dishes were still as good as they used to be.

I truly hope those mistakes are just accidental because it would be a shame to see Leila go down the same path Al Balad Restaurant took. Consistency is crucial to a restaurant’s success and it’s almost nowhere to be seen in Lebanon.

Since we are so damn good at copying our songs, brands and almost everything from other people, I thought we make out of this “Lebanese speciality” a quiz this time and challenge our readers to see if they will be able to match this “amazingly disguised” logo with a logo they have surely seen somewhere.

Since Mark had posted about Al Jadeed’s report on our national anthem [Link], I’ve seen the video several times and done some research and I am deeply convinced that AL Jadeed just wanted some attention and nothing more, specially when they got Ghassan Rahbani to enlighten us on this issue!

Minute 0:29 The memo sent noticed a similarity between the Lebanese National anthem adopted in 1927 and the Moroccan Royal anthem adopted in 1956.

Minute 1:03 The video being shown was shot in 1959 and the sound in the background was supposedly from that year or later.

Minute 1:49 The Reef Republic anthem was destroyed in 1926 and “Nasheed el Reef” written in 1924 without a tune. The music for the National Anthem was prepared in 1925 [Link] by Wadih Sabra, which means that the lyrics were done in 1925 or before (Given that a competition was organized to choose the best tune).

As far as the lyrics are concerned, they are very different from the Reef anthem except they both were done on “Ba7r el Raml” which was widespread back then.

As far as the music is concerned, there’s no proof that Mohammad Flayfel did the music and there’s no mention of when he did it. Add oto the fact that his own son clearly stated that his father did not do it.

Therefore, and in the lack of any proof that the music was done by Mohammad Flayfel, Moroccans are the ones who stole the anthem and set it as the royal anthem and not us.

Last but not least, the LAST person allowed to talk about plagiarizing tunes is Ghassan Rahbani and the Rahbanis in general. I love Fayrouz and all but it is a known fact that a considerable number of her songs are adaptations of old tunes.

Don’t get me wrong as I am not trying to claim Fayrouz is bad or fake. On the contrary, I find it normal for artists to get inspired from beautiful music and re-adapt it with their own country’s lyrics.

Having said all that, let’s hope this Masquerade that Al Jadeed started is thrown in the trash can where it belongs. Our Lebanese National Anthem is unique and beautiful and its lyrics are great, so let’s play it loud and proud. [National Anthem]